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. 2020 Dec;76(12):2198-2211.
doi: 10.1002/jclp.23041. Epub 2020 Aug 18.

Development and validation of a three-item version of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale

Pablo Martínez  1   2   3   4 , Irene Magaña  1   5 , Paul A Vöhringer  2   3   6   7 , Viviana Guajardo  2   3   8 , Graciela Rojas  2   3   4   9
Affiliations

Development and validation of a three-item version of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale

Pablo Martínez et al. J Clin Psychol. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

Objective: To develop and validate a brief screening instrument for postpartum depression in resource-constrained primary care settings.

Method: Secondary data analysis of a cohort of 305 mothers (Mdnage = 26) attending well-child check-ups in six primary care centers in Santiago, Chile, answered the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey, and the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview depression module. A predictive model for postpartum depression was built using logistic and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regressions, with bootstrap validation.

Results: A three-item version of the EPDS exhibited excellent discriminative capacity (c statistic = 0.95) and showed no significant differences versus the full version of the EPDS (χ2 (1) = 1.75, p = .187). The best trade-off between sensitivity (92.86%) and specificity (86.70%) was achieved at a cut-off score of 8/9.

Conclusions: The three-item version of the EPDS can save clinicians valuable time, which might potentially improve communication of results to patients.

Keywords: decision support techniques; postpartum depression; primary care; screening; sensitivity and specificity.

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References

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